Holiday outbid by Alamo Bowl for picks

The Pacific Life Holiday Bowl is on the verge of losing much of its national luster.

After 11 years of matching the Pac-10 Conference runner-up against a third pick from the Big 12, the game has been outbid by the Alamo Bowl for those teams in new contract talks with those leagues. That means that the Holiday Bowl now is looking at hosting the No. 3 team from the Pac-10 and a fifth pick from the Big 12, starting from 2010 through 2013.

“It's disappointing,” said Bruce Binkowski, the game's executive director. “But that's the way it is right now in college football. Money is very important. If some bowls are willing to pay large sums of money for a matchup, we have to make a decision if we want to get into that game.”

In this case, the Holiday Bowl decided against increasing its guaranteed payouts to teams from $2.35 million to over $3 million — just to keep the same matchup it's had since 1998. The Alamo Bowl in San Antonio offered $3 million to those conferences for those teams. To outbid the Alamo, Binkowski said he would have had to increase the average ticket price from $60 to about $100.

The other major sources of the game's revenue — TV rights and title sponsorship — weren't going to increase, either. The Holiday is in the final year of its title sponsorship with Pacific Life and isn't close to extending the deal.

“We just don't feel that raising ticket prices in this economy and passing that on to our very loyal ticket holders is a prudent business decision,” Binkowski said. “We opted not to bid at that level.”

Many contracts with conferences are expiring this season, so some bowls are making a push to upgrade their rank in the pecking order. Alamo Bowl officials didn't return calls seeking comment yesterday about where they're getting the cash to increase their bid. The Insight Bowl in Phoenix also is said to be increasing its payout to teams from $1.2 million to around $3 million in order to pick fourth from the Big 12 instead of sixth. Last year, the Holiday Bowl hosted two Top 15 teams with Oregon and Oklahoma State. If it had the No. 3 Pac-10 and No. 5 Big 12 teams last year, the Holiday probably would have hosted No. 24 Oregon State vs. No. 25 Missouri.